


phantom touch

by madburymangler



Series: Phantom Touch [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Euostrath's Descent
Genre: Character Study, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Love, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Slash, Original Universe, Other, Reincarnation, Sexual Content, not exactly implied but not exactly explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:01:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28764477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madburymangler/pseuds/madburymangler
Summary: iketasos isn't used to feeling and nyleein isn't used to showing. they both decide to get out of their respective comfort zones.
Relationships: Iketasos/Nyleein
Series: Phantom Touch [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108832
Comments: 2





	phantom touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aconitumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aconitumi/gifts).



> Iketasos belongs to Lark (@larkspureee on Twitter) and Nyleein to her DM.

Iketasos is afire.

Not literally, of course - this is an important distinction to make, after all - but veins that they can _feel_ , delivering their horribly human blood to every inch of them, spark with something almost like magic.

Maybe Nyleein's presence _is_ an illusion, meant to bait and tempt them into... what? Giving up their secrets? They have too many intrinsically layered into their core to give that up for a pretty face and something as inconsequential as love.

Oh, they do _love,_ though.

They're too composed to do something so base as _stumble_ to their rooms, but if they tangle their fingers together with his, his scarred skin rough and pleasant against the tingling, near-immaterial shift of their right hand, then that's close enough to get away with. Iketasos is slipping, perhaps, but with their ringed hands flanking the striking twosome they make, they have never felt more whole.

Nyleein fills them, this empty longing that scoops out their core, and his bright orbit tethers them to this world they inhabit.

The door opens with a touch they don't remember giving, but for once, this lack of control is okay; Nyleein is right there, and Iketasos cannot help the way they press him against the wall, ready and eager to coax the curious tilt of his lips into something softer.

"Is it your turn to be forward tonight?" he whispers, voice husky with their proximity. "Are you going to learn my so-called flavor?"

Instead of a response, Iketasos ghosts a kiss along the angles of his jaw just to feel him shudder beneath them, warm and real, and settle into pliant receptiveness. Slowly, threading their fingers through the soft fall of his hair, they pry his mask from his face, reveling in the skin thus revealed.

"Mm, much better," they reply, the other hand working at Nyleein's ribbon. He looks delightful all put together, but they can't resist this chance to take him apart and learn what makes him tick. A cascade of white fills their view, and if they had to hazard a guess as to what home feels like, they would pinpoint it as the bliss that bubbles in their chest at the solidity of the man before them. They press another kiss to the place where his jaw meets his ear, sucking a small bruise just to feel him melt. "What was that about spice? You're all sweetness and light. Maybe you should continue unmasking yourself. I'd love to learn everything there is to know about you."

With a tortured noise that might have had Iketasos worried had they not known the results of their own charms so intimately, Nyleein flips their positions with a strength that thrills them to their core. The thud of their body against the wall sparks a delicious flutter in their chest that they're unfamiliar with - is this what it's like to feel? - made all the better because it's Nyleein whose hands gently tug at his collar, Nyleein whose teeth tug at their choker.

It's not Iketasos who likes to be undone, but when their paramour (Is that the word? This all feels so _new_ , and they are so old.) pulls away with the undone evidence of his handiwork, it takes everything they have not to sag against him and melt into living flame.

"Is that so?" Nyleein all but hisses, mouth returning to the newly bared expanse of their throat to lavish it with kisses and playful bites. "And you always get what you want, do you?"

"If it's something that you might also find yourself desiring? Almost certainly, my sweet."

Nyleein groans again, breaths coming in short puffs against the damp skin of their neck. "You're going to drive me mad, you know."

That old emptiness yawns again, many-fanged and as real as they are, and Iketasos shifts so they can see the twin stars of his eyes. "In a pleasant way, I hope."

"You are the most delightful of diversions." He seems to mean it, too, hands pawing at the expensive fabric of their outfit like it's done him a grave disservice.

Perhaps, then, the question is not _whether_ his love (because that's what he's confessed it to be, far more readily than they could have imagined) is true, but how this can be so. What have they ever done to deserve such loyalty? He would cross time and space for them; would anyone else even remember Iketasos enough to care about trying? There is _him_ , perhaps, but of the two, only one has ever proven himself.

Sometimes, Nyleein does not feel real.

For once, they can appreciate everything that is before them. On his breath, they can smell the wine from the masquerade and taste future evidence of their time together. In the fall of both their clothes, they can hear him unbutton his waistcoat. In his hands, they can see a story of scars and softness, one they can map out with their touch.

When Iketasos hauls him in by his tie to kiss him soundly, Nyleein goes more than willingly. In their boots, there's not much difference in their respective heights, and they relish the way the two of them fit together, more natural than even breath could ever be.

"We would make a pretty portrait," they murmur as they part from him, noses brushing as he turns into them, seeking their mouth once more. "Smoke and mirrors though we are, I think we could manage to be something quite delightful, don't you?"

The only manipulations they will ever apply to him are here, where they have begun to know what he likes. As it turns out, what Nyleein wants is the same as what they desire from him: for him to submit, to be good for them.

It's only fair when they treasure him so deeply.

"You're going to make my lungs give out," he huffs, and then he is all movement, hungry for the taste of Iketasos's skin in return for what they have denied him. Clothes are shed faster now, faster, _faster_ , until Nyleein can bear it no longer and lifts them bodily, depositing them on the bed. If the two of them are not bare, they are close to it, and every inch of Iketasos knows what it is to feel the heat of a star up close.

This does not hurt them, though: it's Nyleein, after all.

Quicker than he can register, they shift positions so they are on top, perched in his lap like they belong there. In many ways, of course, they do. There is unrestrained awe in Nyleein's gaze as he chases starstuff along the planes of Iketasos's body; if they are not bare, then they are close to it, and in many ways, it registers just the same to both of them.

"Eyes on me, if you would," they command, voice rich with a feeling they don't care to name for fear of losing it, and they push the pad of a finger against the plush give of his mouth, almost like a kiss.

"Wasn't that where they were?" Nyleein nips at their fingers with the tip of an eyetooth, and they have never felt more _seen._

"Mouthing off won't deliver you to where you want to go, you know." They press their forehead to his, relishing the way he softens, right hand grasping at him, thumb pressing into the crease of thigh and hip, left hesitantly skimming up their neck to meet their cheek. They cannot help the sound they make at that, ecstatic at the veneration they're being given.

A monument to this moment could not make it feel more real.

"What do you feel?" they ask, desperate to get a taste of the emotion that seems to course through him, spine stiffening and back arching, a beautiful bow for them to string. "Tell me everything."

"I don't want to mouth off, as you so eloquently put it," Nyleein replies, each movement shifting their balance as they collide into each other, once, twice, forever. "But you're so warm, so alive. I feel as though I'm looking at the world from the embrace of the heavens above. If I'm not happy, then this is something so very close. Do you find that strange?"

"I find a great number of your qualities strange, but this?" Iketasos can't help the smile that stretches their face as their eyes meet his. Isn't that a novel concept? "This inspires adoration above all."

"I love you," he sighs, and then they are both back in motion, Nyleein pressing them back against the plush mattress, mouth questing across their shoulder, mapping it with a precision that any cartographer would be proud of.

With his eyes searching for something without a name (not one that Iketasos can name, at least), they have never felt the dichotomy that lay between the two of them more strongly. He is all light, endlessly bright while boring into the rich darkness of their own gaze, and the twin stars crafted to shine from their endless void stared right back, hungry and wanting.

Nyleein opens his mouth, but whatever he means to say is stuck climbing out of his throat, and they take the opportunity to seize whatever fragile sentiment is lurking there and turn it into something grander. There is no time for talking when both of their mouths are otherwise occupied, and it's a languid consumption they find themselves aping, as though they have until the end of every world to love and be loved.

Although, they suppose, perhaps they do.

This intimacy should be alarming - even if Iketasos is used to being appreciated when they put their mind to it, it's so rare that they reciprocate in any way that even approaches meaningful, after all - but even though there might forever be a fragment of them that recoils, it is good to be known.

To be laid bare, masks gone and disguises askew... there is nothing better, not when it's him that's doing the unveiling.

"Nyleein," they gasp as the point of an incisor scrapes against their lip delightfully, like a predator examining its prey. " _Nyleein._ "

Iketasos has never felt more real than when his light fills them.

Neither of them can stop moving now, each nerve vibrant and alive, and Iketasos feeds off of each fervent kiss, each musical cry that they can almost recognize as their own, if they try hard enough.

It _could_ be theirs if they want it to be, and oh, they want so very desperately.

"I'm here for you," Nyleein whispers, and though the words themselves are no more tangible than feelings, the air that pushes this sentiment against their breastbone can be felt keenly, and they relish in that comfort.

There are a thousand quips that could have tripped off their tongue, but none would have been suitable for this moment, for him. Instead, they seek the ways to pluck them apart, to discover what hidden quirks will melt the two of them together until they fuse and explode in an all-consuming supernova.

Can he see that that is what they desire? He must, because they feed off of him and the sounds he makes when he is exposed. Around them, Nyleein does not feel the need to keep all that he is buried, and those many layers that keep him buttoned up and sequestered away fall by the wayside.

There are so many secrets inked onto his pale flesh, and it's an honor to even see these. To be allowed deeper... now that is a thing so desperately rare that they would name the flavor of their tongue against his skin ambrosia, because he is food fit for a god.

Above all, though, he reads them right back, and that is its own kind of terrifying ecstasy.

"You said that you love me," Iketasos whispers against the already purpling skin of his chest as both of them slot together like opposite magnetic poles, two particles pulled eternally, unerringly toward each other. "Would you tell me that you meant it?"

Nyleein sighs, desperate and thready and achingly fond. "Always. I love you like the sun loves the land it warms."

"Charmer." They shift again, and this time the action leaves _them_ panting. "I love you too, though, and if you will allow it of me, I will partake of that light for as long as I am able."

" _Wonderful,_ " he says, and for the moment, all is right.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/akschoene)


End file.
